To: KLP who wrote (46972 ) 9/25/2002 8:17:45 PM From: Win Smith Read Replies (1) | Respond to I didn't reference a link, oh cheesy high school debate tricks breath. But since you asked. . .As for those cursed rules on covering floor debates, Lamb thought the new Republican tide would wash them away. After all, Newt Gingrich had embraced the cameras a decade earlier, making long speeches on C-SPAN after the rest of the House had gone home. http://www.cjr.org/year/95/5/c-span.asp How do I know politics has become an entertainment medium? Look at today's top practitioners. Did Bill Clinton or Newt Gingrich warm up for office by boning up on policy? Well, sure, a little, but they also played to TV. Gingrich read so many speeches into special orders while the C-SPAN cameras ran that the Democrats in the 1980s instructed the camera to pan around the chamber every once in a while to show that the House was not in session. cent.com Congressman Price: That’s another thing about C-SPAN – it shows that and it’s an interesting story why it shows that. Back with Newt Gingrich was first spreading his wings and trying to dominate the Republican party within the House, one of his favorite devices was to get him and his like-minded members to go out on the floor of the House after hours and give these fire-breathing speeches under what they call special orders. And of course the camera would remain focused on them. It wouldn’t pan the chamber and show that no one was there. And one night Speaker Tip O’Neal apparently saw this and saw the Speaker – I guess it was Gingrich or one of his allies. He was pretending to be challenging the audience and saying outrageous things and says, “Does anyone want to challenge this?” Of course no one spoke because no one was there. So, Speaker O’Neal got so outraged that he ordered that the C-SPAN cameras would every once in a while pan the chamber and just show how many people were sitting there. 216.239.51.100
